When I was studying Psychology at University, our department over the 3 years I was there began to develop/evolve into two main camps: the Behaviorists and the Ethologists - two schools of thought that are divided on the “nature versus nurture” debate. I found myself gradually sliding towards the ethologist’s point(s) of view, especially where anger and violence is concerned i.e. are responses are hardwired instinctual survival mechanisms rather than learnt behaviors. I also came to the conclusion (and I was not alone in this as the research of the past 20-30 years had been pointing in this direction) that we are basically emotionally driven, rather than rationally driven creatures who use our ability to think logically and process information in a rational manner to justify the “emotional decisions” we make. This understanding underpins much of the self-protection piece of the Krav Maga Yashir system.

All individuals, with the exception of Psychopaths, need to become emotional (angry or fearful) in order to become violent. Anger or Fear are basically the same emotion i.e. if you were to wire a person up and monitor all the physical/chemical changes that happen in the body when a person becomes angry and compare these results to that of when a person becomes afraid, the results would be almost identical. A person cornered by a gang, and fulfilling the role of prey in the relationship, will be experiencing the same adrenal release etc as the members of the gang (the predators) who are incensed that any person would have the audacity to enter their bar/pub and stray on to their turf. With everybody in such a heightened emotional state it is unlikely that debate and discussion will resolve the incident: the thinking brain has switched off and the animal part has taken over; you can’t explain to a hungry lion why it would be wrong to eat you.

Whether in the cold light of day the gang would find it hard to argue and debate why an outsider was unwelcome in the pub/bar they frequent, in the heightened emotional state they are experiencing their anger will justify and reinforce their actions. This is an important survival instinct, though in today’s complex social situations it may often be misplaced. If you need to become physically aggressive and engage in a conflict, you need to be emotionally committed to what you are doing; both anger and fear (the same emotion) will go towards justifying your actions to you. If you’re the cornered person your fear instinct will tell you to run, if you’re a member of the predatory group your anger emotion will back-up your desire to become physically violent.

There are many other instinctual factors at play in such a situation; dominance being one of these. In our animal brain we arrange our social relationship by dominance hierarchies e.g. anyone above you can be aggressive towards you but you can’t fight back. In a dominance hierarchy the group will normally trump the individual with aggression flowing downwards. In many social conflicts individuals are attempting to assert dominance over each other. If you are the cornered individual in the bar attempting to explain to the group why you are in that particular place and have a right to be there, it may be that your explanation is seen as a form of insubordination; that you are not respecting your place in the hierarchy. Anyone who believes that an argument can end with one person being right and the other wrong is basically trying to play a dominance game – not a good idea if you are dealing with an emotionally volatile (and alcohol fuelled group) in a bar room setting.

The idea of territory is still a very strong instinct in us; we expect people to behave in a certain way if they are on our turf or dealing with things/people we may believe “belong” to us. If somebody is in our house we expect them to behave in a respectful manner and abide with our “rules and regulations” etc, even if these rules and regulations haven’t been explained – territory and dominance are strongly connected. Walking into a bar/pub that is seen as belonging to a particular group is really about breaking a rule of territory that was never explained or made clear to “the outsider”. Wolf packs spend their entire working day marking their territory. They make it very clear what is theirs and where their boundaries lie. Human beings don’t always make these territorial boundaries clear BUT certainly want them to be observed.

Once a person becomes angry there is no higher authority than their anger; it justifies to them everything they do and every action they take however unreasonable or unfair it may actually be – remember reason takes a break when people become angry. It is always interesting to watch when other people try and intervene in a dispute or try and reason with a person who is angry with another etc. Basically that person doesn’t want to know and they usually expect not only the person reasoning with them to agree with them but will see anything but full commitment to their cause as “disloyalty”. If a member of the gang who have cornered someone in their bar/pub tries to argue that they should leave their “prey” alone etc, they will soon be shouted down and their loyalty to the group questioned.

All of these things are instinctually programmed into us and we must work at finding solutions that connect at an emotional, rather than a rational level. In most angry disputes it will not be possible to come up with a resolution that satisfies all parties and in order to prevent violence this should never be the goal. Resolution is a rational pursuit and can only be sought when all parties are in a non-emotional state. Often this means getting and making distance. The ego can make this a hard thing for us to do as often we want to stay and argue our case, even when the situation we are in is clearly the wrong place to attempt this e.g. when dealing with a boozed up group/gang.

All of this happens in the pre-conflict stage of violence – the phase before any actual conflict occurs. This is a key phase to learn how to operate in as it represents the last opportunity to avoid violence; which should be our goal. The Pre-Conflict phase of violence is the one where we have the choice of: de-escalation, disengagement and/or a determined pre-emptive strike. Often we have to use all three.